Cleveland's giant dream: Misery followed by the Landry effect

The Browns' 0-11 season can be divided into three phases. A key Cleveland coach prefers to relate it to three Super Bowl coaches.

By Steve Doerschuk Repository sports writer

BEREA Winter draws softly toward Browns camp.

Thanksgiving passed as a short, quiet work day.

"We had a good practice and went home," said Ray Horton, who operates the defense. "There was no traffic on the road. I watched a little football and fell asleep. I felt like an old man."

It was a metaphor for what has happened between September and December.

The Browns came close to winning a few games, lapsed into vaguely seeming to have a chance, and lately have been getting blown out.

By the end of the most recent game, against Dallas, there was no traffic jam. Everyone had left by the middle of the fourth quarter.

The losing got old a while back. The orange helmets took it on the chinstrap 10 times in the last 11 games of 2015. They are 0-11 heading into a home game against the New York Giants.

On Labor Day, the rhetoric from new head coach Hue Jackson and many of his players had it that the Browns thought they had a chance to win every Sunday.

That rang true for a while.

In the opener, Robert Griffin III professionally directed drives of 75 and 58 yards and had the ball with the Browns trailing just 13-10 in the third quarter. Then Cameron Erving hiked the ball over Griffin's head.

In the home opener, injury replacement Josh McCown had the Browns on the verge of a 21-0 lead. Then an extra point got blocked.

In Game 3, Cody Parkey lined up for a 46-yard field goal with the game tied at 24-all on the final snap of regulation. Wide left.

In Game 4, rookie Cody Kessler rallied the Browns from an early 14-0 deficit to a 20-17 fourth-quarter lead at Washington. Three turnovers led to a loss.

Game 5 was an ugly knockout. The Patriots were up 33-7 at one point.

That led to a few of those games from which Browns coaches over the years have emerged lamenting the three or four plays that could have changed everything.

In Nashville, the Browns trailed 28-13 before scoring twice in the final 127 seconds.

In Cincinnati, secret weapon Kevin Hogan ran for 100 yards and the Browns cut a deficit to 21-17 in the third quarter, but soon it wasn't really a game.

Next, the Browns led 20-7 at halftime, but the Jets' two long touchdown drives in the third quarter looked so easy that the game looked over, and it was.

November has ushered in a new phase, in which a win in any game or any remaining game seems improbable.

The Cowboys led 35-10 by the end of the third quarter. The Ravens led 28-7 by the middle of the fourth quarter. The Steelers led 210 yards to 50 at hafltime.

On Sunday, the Browns will send Josh McCown, who has one win in two Browns seasons, against Eli Manning, who has won two Super Bowls and is on a five-game winning streak in a 7-3 season.

The Browns' highest rank in the categories of points scored, points allowed, yards gained and yards allowed is No. 29.

The Giants rank 11th in points allowed, 16th in yards allowed, 20th in yards gained and 22nd in points scored. They aren't the Patriots, but they aren't buried in a dumpster, either.

One way of looking at the Browns is to conclude they "are that bad." Old man Horton takes a quieter, more optimistic approach.

The Browns are "that young." It is "this early" in the process of a new regime building from the ground up. There was a chance in September that it was going to look like this, especially when injuries hit and rookies were everywhere each Sunday.

"I have been in this business a long time," said Horton, who was a second-round pick of the 1983 Cincinnati Bengals. "I go back. Pull up Tom Landry’s record when he first started. Pull up Bill Walsh’s record when he first started. Pull up Jimmy Johnson’s record when he first started."

Landry was 0-11-1 in his first year as head coach of the Cowboys, a year after he was a Giants assistant. Walsh was 2-14 in his first year with the 49ers. Johnson went 1-15 after plopping in the Cowboys' saddle. Then they won a bunch of Super Bowls.

"I am not comparing myself to them," Horton said. "Please do not think I am. But you go through things in this business."

Only the 2016 Detroit Lions have gone through an 0-16 season, the ignominy facing the 2016 Browns.

As the season goes softly toward a final record whose specificty hardly seems to matter, Browns fans everywhere might say to Horton, "Please."

"Please, can we wake up in 10 years and find there was a comparison."

Like Horton, head coach Hue Jackson went home on Thanksgiving and watched the NFL on TV. He saw the Cowboys improve to 10-1.

"When you watch Dallas ... that is the vision," Jackson said. "That is what you see."

Reach Steve at 330-580-8347 or steve.doerschuk@cantonrep.com

On Twitter: @sdoerschukREP

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